waffle

ThisService’s resources page just saw a small update with a bunch of new service scripts and honest-to-goodness real sortable tables.

I like when people share their services, which is why I’m going to announce something next week that makes it easier.

You there. Stand up and start organizing your disarray.

Prepare the following:

• A bag for things to dispose of.
• A bag for things of which value and continued future depends on the whim of your children/parents/significant other/roommate.
• A bag for things that do not bring you immediate use but that you’ll want to hang on to for nostalgia or easy profits.
• A large banana box-like contraption, like a banana box or something of like dimensions (about 50 cm long, 30 cm wide, 20 cm tall). This is the hardware box.
• A number of small boxes. These are cable boxes.
• A mid-size box. This is your documentation box.
• A box for recordable media.

Store every piece of hardware in the hardware box. For the purposes of this description, hardware includes computer or electronics peripherals that are not cables, stuff that you connect to other hardware for the sake of using it. A cable convertor is a cable. A SCART switcher is hardware. A KVM is hardware. A Game Boy Advance lamp is hardware.

Do not store cables attached to hardware unless they are specific to the hardware. Pay no attention to priority as you dump things in the hardware box. In the best demonstration of bubble sorting possible, hardware you actually use will be picked up and replaced at the top of the box. Revisit the box in a year and reconsider unused items.

Store every cable (and non-hardware accessory) in the cable boxes. To the maximum extent possible, store only one kind of cable in each box. If possible, label the boxes. If possible, make sure you can re-label the boxes without damage.

Store every piece of product documentation in the documentation box.

Throw away hardware/software packaging unless you’re planning to sell the hardware/software afterwards in which case the original packaging is beneficial, or if you travel with the hardware and the packaging is really good to pack it in.

Go through your CDs, DVDs and floppies. Chuck the ones you wouldn’t accept if a friend told you they had left over after cleaning up their CDs, DVDs and floppies and thought you might like. (We call this category “Acrobat 3.0″s.). Save (of course) unused recordable CDs. Marvel at how old or bleeding edge you are when you encounter a CD caddy, a 400K 3-inch floppy or a 5¼-inch floppy.

If you have a photo printer, store ink, paper, CD-writing insets, driver CDs and other flotsam adjacent to the printer.

Clean vast empty spaces of desk.

If you are a Real Man™, dispose of the documentation box.

Have a cold beverage and a hot shower, in any order.

The Problem With Custom Installers is a brilliant piece by Mike Zornek. (I have a lot of respect for Mike Zornek. Not only has he managed to make it on his own as an independent developer, he also wrote the initial implementation of the MegaManEffect blockbuster hit.)

In the article, Mike points out that custom installers are a hassle and that many people who use them would be better off using Apple’s own Installer. Here’s the problem, though: most of the custom installers - and many of the installers Mike is complaining about - are crappy re-implementations of Apple’s Installer. They are doing exactly the same thing, coded from the bottom and up, but in a worse way. I’ve had one of the VISE installers shut down every single app on my system without asking. They still look like they were dragged, kicking and screaming, out of Mac OS 9. Running one of these installers is like getting a visit from the mob.

In contrast, what I want is something that copies a damn file to a folder that does not exist by default and is careful doing it - half of my stuff are plugins and can’t be dragged and dropped unless you already have like plugins. Following the instructions I currently provide in the readme, while annoying, requires you to Deal With less stuff than following Apple’s Installer. An improvement to this situation is not just one that automates the process, it’s one that makes it shorter and doesn’t do so at the expense of being correct.

Writing an installer is something you should have to think very hard about. Most apps don’t need installers and can be dragged and dropped to where they need to be. The rest of the apps either need Special Stuff to happen or they need admin privileges, and they should use the default Installer. I do not need Special Stuff to happen, I just need drag and drop to a folder that does not yet exist.

This is a common problem and it’s something that, out of four products, I have to deal with in two. It may appear to be ridiculous overkill to some, but I have a good opportunity to solve it now - to create an installer that’s well-mannered (shows a list of its files, acts accordingly on “no free disk space” errors, provides some sort of receipt log and handles up- and downgrades) and is tailored to the situation.

I didn’t decide to do this because I wanted to create a new Xcode project - I did so because I reviewed the alternatives and rejected them, knowing that if possible, I shouldn’t need to provide an installer, knowing how a good general installer should behave (and talking to people who know more to see what they consider essential) and how my installer in particular would ideally behave.

The sun is apparently an enormous organ.